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Our 7 Favorite Communication Tools at Work

At SpeakUp, we are maniacal about efficient communication – how to communicate, the tools to use and when to use what method of communication. We believe that a new concept or idea can only be fully realized if all stakeholders involved have a common understanding. Here are our favorite communication tools:

We do not use email for internal communication. We thrive on asynchronous, contextual conversations. We use Slack “channels” related to specific work streams, so that the team can reply at their convenience without having to dig through a mess of emails.

We work remotely. Seeing and hearing each other is a crucial part of teamwork. We avoid meetings as much as possible, but when they’re necessary, or when we need a live working session, we use Hangouts.

We use SpeakUp when anyone on the team encounters a problem that is getting in the way of achieving our goals – or when someone has a great new idea. We don’t use Slack or have meetings for this purpose because we need the clearly structured output and the voting-based curation that SpeakUp provides.

Trello is our task management and project management tool. It’s what we use to track and manage work. Projects have their own “Trello boards” and tasks have their own “Trello cards.” We love Trello because of the customizable status columns, the ability to mention/tag people in cards, and the flexibility of the tool – it can be used to manage anything from dev work to a birthday party.

We’re a very visual group at SpeakUp. Pipedrive visualizes our customer pipeline in a way that’s really simple to manage. Drag and drop prospects into their current stage of the sales cycle, add notes and set reminders for follow-up. We use Pipedrive for investor and channel-partner prospects as well.

We love Intercom because we can send customers automatic emails and in-app messages based on pre-set conditions. For example: a notification to alert customers of new features or a reminder email for new users that haven’t logged in recently. Conversations are threaded so that our internal team can see who has been replied to and which customers still need a response.

Email

We use email when communicating with third parties. We spend time to craft well-written emails with complete information and concrete next steps. If more than a few emails are required to come to an agreement, we schedule a Google Hangout. Some of us use unroll.me to clear the clutter from our inboxes. Newsletters and informative emails are distilled into one easy to read update.